Israeli politicians may provoke arrest to force law change in Britain

[shira]

A swift change to the law promised by ministers to prevent Israeli politicians and generals being arrested when they visit Britain is in doubt.

A Cabinet split over timing threatens to postpone any alteration of the rules until after the election, The Times has learnt, even though ministers assured Israel that it was a priority. Such a delay would leave visiting Israelis at risk and could worsen an already sour dispute with Jerusalem.

Tzipi Livni, the Israeli opposition leader whose threatened arrest sparked the dispute, indicated last night that she was prepared to travel to Britain and “take the bullet” if that was the only way to shame the Government into action. “Britain has obligated itself to me personally that this subject will be taken care of and fixed,” she said. “Now is the time.”

Ministers promised to act after a magistrate in London issued a warrant for the arrest of Ms Livni last year, for alleged war crimes in Gaza when she was Foreign Minister. The warrant was withdrawn after she cancelled her planned trip.

more...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7026939.ece

[sui generis]

1. I'll bet it's not as black and white as it seems.

for instance, if a private citizen can issue a warrant for war crimes committed in a foreign country, isn't there something like a burden of proof or at the very least, probable cause that comes into play?

Besides an accusation of "war crimes", what evidence is offered that secures the warrant? I'm not taking a side here in the absence of any mitigating information, but it would seem that overturning the law rather than strengthening rules of evidence is the wrong direction. Also, what power to suspend a warrant exists, if any?

Then of course, there are inevitably the arrogant posturing bullies on both sides who forget the original intent of such a law. What I did not like in the article is the usual veiled threat from Israel to Britain if they don't change their law altogether. Grow up, Israeli government, and learn some diplomatic tact. Foreign relations have to respect the appearance of propriety AND impropriety.

Address the facts and move on. I do think Ms. Livni should call their bluff rather than insist on changing the law. It might actually be beneficial to both sides.

[T Wolf]

2. Laws and common decency do not apply to Israelis, - don't you know that. They should be free

to travel the world and not have to worry about petty little things like genocide and war crimes.

That country and its policies are the root of all the problems in the Middle East.

Remove Israel or have it behave as a civilized nation and 99% of the unrest in the area would disappear. Certainly, no one would be attacking the US for supporting that regime.

[LeftishBrit]

3. 'Iraq and its policies are the root of all the problems in the Middle East' .'Iran and its policies

are the root of all the problems in the Middle East' 'Israel and its policies are the root of all the problems in the Middle East'. 'Remove (chosen bogeynation) and 99% of the unrest in the area would disappear'.

I wonder what is the basic difference between such statements. Oh wait -THERE ISN'T ONE.

And I hope you're not seriously recommending 'removing' ANY existing nation (= WAR).

[pelsar]

4. i always love the *civilized*nation mantra...

hmm i guess the US doesnt count as it destroyed iraq...egypt using poison gas, syrian wiping out their own city of 40,000 also using poison gas, iran sending drugged out kids to clear mine fields by getting blown up. Lebanon...which sect shall i choose to list their atrocities?...., druze, christian, muslim....

let me translate
Remove Israel or have it behave as a civilized nation and 99% of the unrest in the area would disappear
what the poster means is, is that the wars and killings in the middle east without israel, wouldnt be newsworthy for the poster, and nobody in the west would really care a whole lot.

[Jim Sagle]

6. Remove Israel? David Duke, is that you?

[cali]

13. wtf is wrong with you?

take your hate and xenophobia and do something appropriate with it. Your hate is pathalogical. sick, sick, sick- and I have the same contempt and loathing for the bigots who hate Palestinians.
\

[aranthus]

5. An interesting idea.

The original arrest warrant on Livni was clearly a political stunt (it was withdrawn after she changed her travel plans), and it is likely that the people behind that stunt wouldn't know what to do with a trial of the case if they got it. Would the Goldstone report survive a hearing in an English court? I think not.

[Violet_Crumble]

7. I hope she does get arrested and it goes to trial...

If she committed war-crimes, why shouldn't she be held responsible for them?

[shaayecanaan]

8. The problem is that Britain doesnt have clean hands...

and it does look hypocritical if they try one war criminal but not another.

I listened to a radio interview with Ronald Dworkin in which he suggested that Tony Blair and George Bush would be best off not holidaying in Scandinavia. No doubt Livni would be best off not going there either. Same for John Howard.

But I tend to follow the edict that one should consistently prosecute war criminals, or consistently not do so.

[Kurska]

10. No one has clean hands anywhere, thats the problem.

World leaders shouldn't be afraid that they will have to spend a night in Jail whenever they visit another country, especially when all it takes is one judge with a agenda to bring them in.

[ConsAreLiars]

11. "World leaders shouldn't be afraid that they will have to spend a night in Jail"

That is the kind of sick authoritarianism and infantile 'reasoning' that mass murderers depend and thrive on. I think every one who orders the mass murder of innocents should have a trial. Plead self defense, insanity, lust for power, or whatever.

Mass murderers, even those who are in government in their country,like Papa Doc and Baby Doc in Haiti, Pol Pot or Kissinger or Stalin or Omar al-Bashir should all be tried and sentenced, Even Israelis.

Mass murderers should never fear being held to account? That is your view?

Well, I might bother going on a rant, but for the humanitarians, progressives, and simply humans the rest would be obvious, and for the cowards, haters, and supremacists, it would be impossible to understand.

[Kurska]

12. Who decides who is a mass murder? If what that leader did was wrong? The local court of London?

If Pol Pot had got nabbed in Finland, put on trial there and found innocent, would he then be excused of all charges against him and free to travel the world? What if a British court got ahold of the Premier of china and found him guilty of crimes against humanity in Tibet? How are the Chinese supposed to take that, could that start a war?

Things such as this need to be brought up and settled in international forums designed to handle and answer such questions. We can't just have every country on earth going off in separate directions, playing arrest the leader with its neighbors, that would be absolute chaos and mockery of justice.

[ConsAreLiars]

14. Glad to see you supporting the Goldstone report and the UN.

I agree that prosecution by 'a community of nations' like the UN has authorized is better than done by any single one.

I disagree about not arresting the various world leaders for the crimes they committed. You may want them to be exempt. That's pretty consistent with standard RW authoritarian doctrine, But I don't think any of them sdhould get a free pass just because of their title, any more than Idi Amin. The difference between that monster and those you also believe should be exempt from prosecution is a matter more of quantity than quality.

(edit tiny punctuation misses)

[Kurska]

15. So then I guess we are both in agreement, the place for war crimes trials is not in London in local

UK Courts. So the UK Government should change that law.

To briefly answer your question about how I feel about cast lead being prosecuted, I don't believe the conduct of the IDF during cast lead was a war crime or even worse then things countries like Russia did to Chechnya or Turkey did even more recently to Northern Iraq. If those are the standards of what won't get you prosecuted, Israel came in way under those. But I certainly don't feel like arguing that point, that really isn't even what this thread is about.

[Chulanowa]

17. So, free pass for Rumsfeld?

How many nations have warrants on that creep now? Seven? Twelve?

[LeftishBrit]

16. +100!

We need to arrest Blair first. (And don't hold your breath on that!)

[Violet_Crumble]

18. I don't understand. Why does Blair have to be arrested first?

It doesn't matter who's first, as long as war criminals are held accountable for their crimes. Ideally they should be tried by an international war crimes tribunal such as the International Criminal Court, which would have had universal jurisdiction if it hadn't been in a large part for the US opposing it, but as Israel refuses to be a state party to it and thanks to the US there's no universal jurisdiction, I'd rather war criminals be arrested and tried in countries like the UK rather than seeing them run loose and seeing people call families of their victims attempts to bring them to justice as mere publicity stunts...

[LeftishBrit]

19. I would rather see INTERNATIONAL jurisdiction over war crimes

I disagree with the US opposing the ICC.

I also think there are cases where the UK has a right to call for a foreign leader's extradition, especially if their crimes involved British citizens.

However, I don't think that every individual judge in the UK should have an independent right to call for arrest of leaders of other countries. It would be chaotic. Moroever, given the general nature of most UK judges, they would probably go after left-wing leaders first; or just after those who've offended the UK (e.g. rivals in the EU). Can you imagine the Daily Mail baying for the blood of any leader that the British right have decided to dislike?

And yes, I do think that as long as our own top war criminal goes free, we lose some of the moral high ground in dealing with those in other countries.

[Kurska]

9. The UK court system isn't set up to handle those sorts of cases.

There is no precedent and there is no history, more over leader of countries doing far worse things then Israel have visited the UK without so much as a peep, it is singling out Israel because it is Israel. It would be literally impossible for a Israeli to get a fair trial in the UK system, given they aren't UK Citizens and the system has no means to handle that kind of trial, even if they could the UK has no jurisdiction on the Issue, war crimes are the responsibility of the ICC.

If you want to bring it up at ICC, fine probably won't happen but thats the venue to do it, but what keeps people from arresting UK politicians over Iraq, Australian ones over the treatment of the aboriginal people, Chinese over Tibet, Russians over Chechnya or turkish over the treatment of the kurds. I'm not saying those are equivalent cases, what I am saying is it is a dangerous precedent to set and would go a long way toward reducing the already paltry amount of face to face diplomacy we have in this world.